LJ Idol Presents:

A few words from clauderainsrm:

(Note: majorica is still in it. She just took a bye. Because of her fast turn around back into the game, and how tired I was last night I mistakenly thought she'd never left. She DID have a bye to use! My apologies!)

For those remaining though, we have a poll. How many people will be leaving us?

I’ll admit that I was advocating for no one leaving. I’m going to be on vacation this week and didn’t want to watch a poll… but the Wheel said there was an elimination, so… all things must bow to the Wheel!

The poll will be a longer than usual though, because I’m not closing it until I come back. :D

Which means longer to read, comment and vote for your favorites - and more time to get other people to do the same!!

*spins to see how many people will be leaving*

1

So make sure to get out there and support your favorites!

The poll will close Tuesday, October 7th at 8pm.

(I get back Monday and will be tired. So giving myself that wiggle room! Enjoy your time with the poll! And good luck everyone!

 I've been listening to people's comments and I asked the Wheel about an adjustment. There was a BIG item that is on the Wheel that I asked if I could just go ahead and bring it out now.  The Wheel said no.  Which, is probably smart. Let the Wheel have it's time to bring about the chaos on it's own schedule. 

The other idea was approved though.  

So the antidote is going to be working a little differently. Rather than it staying in the hands of one person, STARTING NOW,  that decision is going to be made by the group. 

Now you all have a stake in who lives and who dies.  It's not just the actions of the killer(s), you will be able to predict their next move and get ahead of them, or fail to protect the next victim! 
This will take place before the entry deadline, at the same time you are submitting accusations!  So you could actually stop the next death - if you guess the target right! 

Just add it to your accusation email (clauderainsrm@gmail.com).  Just make sure to let me know which choice is for which thing.  :D 

***

Everyone comes out to Idol for something different. I think that's one of the biggest concepts for people to try to get their heads around. A lot of them fail to do it, because it's easier to assume that everyone is here for the same reason you are.  Just like it's easier to think that everyone agrees on what is a good entry/who is the best/who "deserves" what.... these competing believes are at the center of Idol. It's part of what makes me love what has been created here over the last nearly two decades. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about why this special event is all twists... part of it was the one just before had hardly any - so it seemed like the next natural step.  People complained about the lack of twists. Be there are people who don't like that there are so many.  :D  Again, it's because people are here for different reasons... 

But all of you end up accomplishing the same thing - you write absolutely brilliant entries. Some is fiction. Some non-fiction or poetry... over the years pretty much anything you could think of to create in this space has been created!  

The twists were put in place early on for a couple big reasons - (1) to keep things interesting, not only for the contestants to keep you invested, but also the audience who wasn't playing. Also for me!   (2) to keep things fair. Especially early on in Idol there were people with massive, active friends groups. There were also people who came in knowing no one.  What was to keep someone coming in and just dominating the entire time with no hope for anyone else?  Twists. It keeps people on their toes and in a lot of cases it doesn't mean that it's the end of the road for anyone with a more supportive base. It just means that the majority of other contestants need to be OK with their winning.  :)  Which is it's own secret sauce! 

This time was different than most in that I didn't try to make things as fair as possible. I put everything on the Wheel to make it as chaotic as possible, as interesting as possible!  It's the one time when even I don't know what's going to happen next!! 

I came up with a bunch of ideas, and had the Wheel decide which ones were going forward and which were not.  There are some on the scrap heap that I loved and some that got through that I didn't.  But that's part of why I kept saying from the moment I came up with the idea, to every single step of the way before sign ups and again over the first couple weeks that this was going to be the Idol version of Calvinball!!! 

Honestly, we might end up with predictable winners. Or we might not!  My only real hope when it comes to that is that people keep using it as an excuse to write some fantastic entries, to create! Because that's the one thing that everyone can agreed on, that when you show up here you are going to be doing a hell of a lot of writing!!!  :) 

 The prompt for this week is 

Tiger Team 

The deadline to link your entry back to this thread is Tuesday, September 30th at 7pm ET. 

Have fun! 

 It was the week that would not end.  But it finally has. Unfortunately for two contestants, their journey for this mini season has ended as well. 

Compared to how this week *could* have gone (with Milton) honestly being eliminated in Idol isn't that big of a... wait, who I am kidding? This is way worse than anything people who went through Helene and Milton underwent. Idol is everything!! 

Right? *Looks around for agreement* 

Seriously though, thank you for everyone's patience with Milton prep and then Tampa Electric. I know a lot of people in our area are still without power, so I am grateful that I am able to be here with you, even if it means saying goodbye to two of my favorite writers, and people. 

In a mini season where there was "no room to hide" every week has been saying goodbye to a favorite. This week is no different. 

Goodbye to alycewilson  andgunwithoutmusic  

Thank you so much for coming out this mini season and for sharing your talent with all of us.  I hope that we will continue to see you in the Home Game, and in the Green Rooms!

 I've done something unprecedented.  I have suspended the poll.  Closed it, and it WILL reopen. 

Why? Because I don't want to "eliminate" anyone right before Milton hits. Seems the wrong thing to do "karma" wise.  :D 

Yes, go ahead and kick me. 

We are boarded up (We got some unexpected help from a new-ish neighbor) 

I will be reactivating the poll, either on Thursday or Friday... depending on the power situation. If it's longer than that, you may have been spared. 

Maybe I'll put up something else for you to click on, since I know you love the clicks.  :) 

A few words from clauderainsrm:

Since 2014, there is an annual event called the “Pelikan Pen Hub”, which is a worldwide one-day celebration of fountain pens. Each area (that met the qualifications) has a “hub” where people gather to use their pens and hang out. It is sponsored by Pelikan pens, which is a German company that has been in the business since 1838, making pens and ink!

The annual hub took place last Friday, which for Florida (and much of the southeast coast of the United States) was when Hurricane Helene showed up with its path of destruction. Most of the area where the Hub was to take place had streets completely underwater. Pelikan had sent out an email to all of the Hub Masters in the Southeast US letting them know they were free to reschedule the event (the first time it’s happened, so it’s unprecedented).

That reschedule date - for my area - was last night. Which is why everyone ended up having an extra day to write and edit their entries. So you can thank my wife’s love of analog writing for your extra time!

From what I’ve seen as I was linking the entries (a brief scan, my full read will come this weekend), it seems like you used that time well!

How well though is going to be determined by the voters. So make sure you read, comment and vote for your favorites!

We will be losing TWO contestants again.

The poll will be closing Tuesday, October 8th at 8pm ET. Good luck to everyone!

 This is the last Idol post I will be making as a 52 year old. 

The results/Sudden Death Write Off thread was posted last night: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1165241.html

and the new Prompt was posted this morning  https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1165556.html

I'm starting to think that we should stop the regular polls and just have a rotating Sudden Death Write Off between randomly selected people!  :D 
Might save some time!!!  ;) 

***

What are you doing to celebrate my birthday this weekend???   I wasn't planning on being off today but thanks to the hurricane my office is closed!  So no real damage (other than a little bit of clean up and putting everything back where it goes) but a free day to relax!  I wish everyone could be as lucky. (since there ARE people without power/significant damage) and those who are still in the path of the storm. 

 I've got to say, if these votes are any indication of how people think this "should" shake out, we are in for one hell of a ride these next few weeks!

The good news is that although it was a tie for the second spot at the bottom, only person is being eliminated due to it being their third strike. 

Which is the bad news, that there is one person leaving us. 

The contestants with a strike are: 
alycewilson 
hangedkay  and
stellinasusan 

The one being eliminated is, unfortunately, our youngest contestant, the always great yamyam_kat 

I hope we will be seeing more of her work in the very near future!! (Home Game!!!) 

***

As with all contestant only votes, if you want to know how you fared, just send me an email clauderainsrm@gmail.com and I will let you know "bottom/middle/top" 

 I've seen this quote attributed to a couple different people, but for some reason when I googled it this morning I could only find a couple links. So I'm not sure where it actually comes from. But I think it's meaning is clear enough. 

“Surgery often looks like murder if you judge it halfway through”

The deadline to link your entry back to this post is Sunday, June 26th at 7pm ET.

Have fun!

 With how the weeks ended up being spaced out, this is the second Weekend Edition of Week 11! 

It's also the last day of the poll for the main competition - so make sure that your voice is being heard! 

Anything out there that you think needs to be getting more recognition in the votes department? https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1030811.html

With only 3 members of the Jury seated for this vote, this week is going to be interesting to see who receives immunity. I will tell you this, it is coming down to the final Juror to make this decision... unless of course it gets thrown into a tie in which case then it gets thrown into a tie-breaker.... which is pretty rare. 
***

Second Chance ie already moving forward with their final topic: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1031859.html after another brutal round of eliminations: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1031601.html

***

Tomorrow is going to be the first official day without my least favorite co-worker. I can't recall if I posted this or not - but a couple weeks ago she put in her notice, and then insisted that she be allowed to take her PTO for almost all of those two weeks. It's not "allowed" but she complained loud and long enough at HR that they ended up just letting her do it.  I'm guessing they wanted her to go away as much as I did. :) 

Which means the last week or so have been great, especially since my second least favorite is on a cruise.  I think she comes back this week though, I'm hoping things will be better once she does, because I liked her before she became so close with the "bad one", so maybe without that influence she will go back to being nice again. 


Which isn't what I was going to talk about today. It was about work, but not about that. Just before Christmas break, the newest co-worker invited us all out to lunch, her treat.  Only two of us took her up on it. 

It was nice - until I was confronted with something I didn't see coming. I should have.  I'm being purposefully vague, but let's chalk it up that I have food related trauma in my past and leave it at that - to the point that there are things that I actively avoid, but I've gotten better over the years. To the point that I can be at the same table as it.  I just position myself so that I'm not looking at it, or smell it.  Because everyone has their own triggers and that's one of mine.  Probably the biggest. 

It ended up right in front of me (directly across) with the person asking if I wanted to share... I tried my best to cover, but I wasn't doing a great jnb of it and my co-workers ended up being concerned asking if I was OK. I said that I was and that I'd tell them later... but it pretty much ruined lunch. 

I did end up sharing the bare minimum of the story.  Food related issues involving my step-father and that item. One of them chimed in with "Oh, it's PTSD. That makes sense now" and we actually ended up sharing a tiny bit of our own stories with each other. 

I'm only bringing this up because since then, the new co-worker and I have actually started talking quite a bit. Not about that day, but in general - about real life, and she's mentioned things she didn't bring up that afternoon. 

So what was a really embarrassing moment for me at the time has actually opened up a new friendship.  

This is my vague and roundabout way of saying don't be afraid to be vulnerable.  In your life, or in your work.  There are people around you who can relate, even if you don't always see it right away.